As private detective Jim Rockford, James Garner set the tone for what it meant to be a man, and a human being.
“There aren’t any heroes…they die young.”
That was the endearing attitude of iconic TV-detective Jim Rockford, played with both class and a rugged grace by James Garner, who passed away yesterday at the age of 86.
When it comes to Garner, I think Rockford was wrong about heroes dying young. For me, Garner was both an actual real-life hero, (he served in the Army during the Korean War where he was wounded in action twice, earning two Purple Hearts) and a hero of the Silver Screen, starring in flicks like The Great Escape and Grand Prix.
The thing that separated Garner from other leading men of his time was his self-effacing personality, something that carried over into almost all his characters. He played men, not supermen, and he did it with a sense of humor and timing that was instantly endearing. For characters like Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford, it was often more important to survive than to succeed, more importantly, Garner managed to play those roles with a manliness that never drifted over into mindless machismo, something TV and Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz succinctly mentioned:
RIP James Garner, whose performances proved you didn’t have to be belligerent to be manly.
— Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) July 20, 2014
I got my first taste of the show on a lazy afternoon in 1993 that would quickly become my favorite show ever, 13 years after its last airing. Back before A&E got into the Duck Dynasty business, they aired reruns of The Rockford Files. I’d come into the episode probably half-way through, but I was hooked, camping out in front of the TV after school to catch episodes whenever they were on, sometimes twice a day.
For me, Rockford represented an effortless cool. He had a cynical attitude, never missed a chance to crack a joke and was never one to throw himself into danger willingly. Rockford wasn’t afraid to cheat when he had to, which was often. He was a man who clearly knew his limitations, and would improvise, favoring brains over brawn whenever he could, even when brains meant laying a cheap sucker punch when necessary.
As the years went on, I kept watching Rockford, to the point of repetition. When it was announced in 1994 that CBS would air Rockford TV-movies, I thought I died and gone to heaven. Sure, they weren’t the same, but it was nice to see Garner replay his finest role.
Everything about Rockford as a character (and Garner, by extension) represented something that seems to have died in today’s pop-culture. These days men in film and TV are either manchildren or almost humorless. They don’t represent real people, people you know.
James Garner was someone we all knew. He was our neighbor, our uncle, our dad, our friend. He was someone, through his work, that was infinitely relatable, and although he’s been in poor health the last few years (Garner suffered a stroke in 2008, largely staying out of the public eye ever since), knowing that he’s gone, in a way it’s a death in the family for many of us who appreciated an actor who simply did his job.
In doing that, he surpassed most of his peers and left us with material to enjoy for years and years to come. Maybe James Garner didn’t see himself as a hero, or played characters who felt the same way, but it’s true that we always end up burying our heroes, and Garner is absolutely in that category.